The Daughter Of Jephthah Among The Mountains.

Night bent o'er the mountains     With aspect serene;     The deep waters slept     'Neath the moon's pallid sheen,     And the stars in their courses     Moved noiseless on high,     As a soul, when it cleaveth     In thought the blue sky.     The low winds were spent     With the fever of day,     And stirred scarce a leaf     Of the green wood's array;     And the white, fleecy clouds     Hovered light on the air,     Like an angel's wing, bent     For a penitent prayer.     Sleep hushed in the city     The tumult and strife,     And calmed in the spirit     The unrest of life:     But one, where Mount Lebanon     Lifted its snow,     Slumbered not till the morn     Wakened earth with its glow.     Beneath the dark cedars,     Majestic, sublime,     That for ages had mocked     Both at tempest and Time,     In whose tops the wild eagle     His eyrie had made,     She knelt with pale cheek     In the damp, mossy glade.     The small hands were folded     In worship divine,     And the silent leaves thrilled.     In that lone forest shrine,     With the voice of the pleader,     That, earnest and low,     Was sad as the sea-shell's     And plaintive with woe.     She prayed not for life,     Though Youth's early bloom     Glowed on her fair cheek,     And recoiled from the tomb;     But a heart pure and strong,     Sublimed by its pain, -     A spirit attuned     To the seraph's bright strain.     She saw not the dark boughs     That, spectral and hoar,     With lattice-work rude     Arched her wide temple o'er;     She marked not their shadows     Gigantic and dim;     Her soul was communing     In triumph with Him; -     With the Ancient of Days,     Who from mercy-seat high     Beheld the pale pleader     With vigilant eye;     And Peace with white pinion     Came down from His throne,     And the gleam of her wing     On that fair forehead shone.     O Thou that upholdest     The feeble and frail,     And leadest the pilgrim     Through Life's narrow vale!     When the days that are measured     My spirit below     Shall have ceased to the past     From the future to flow, -     May the Summoner find me     As placid and strong,     As meet for endurance     Of agony long,     With a faith as divine     And vision as clear,     As the watchers who wept     On the hills of Juda!